What is fundamental difference between x86, MIPS and ARM

All micrprocessors basically do the same thing, fetch instruction decode execute and store it. They may have hardware support for perhaps some special arithmatic features, they have use pipelined execution as well, they may even be multicore processors.

What I want to know is basically what is the major difference between the computer architecture of big names like x86, PowerPC & MIPS? They are all used for "general purpose computing".

Short question with a very long answer.
There're tons of information out there.
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fundamental differences:

x86 is CISC processor type.
MIPS and ARM are RISC types.



x86 power consumption is very very high compared to ARM

matrixofdynamism said:

All micrprocessors basically do the same thing, fetch instruction decode execute and store it. They may have hardware support for perhaps some special arithmatic features, they have use pipelined execution as well, they may even be multicore processors.

What I want to know is basically what is the major difference between the computer architecture of big names like x86, PowerPC & MIPS? They are all used for "general purpose computing".

Click to expand...

The major difference is how they do it (fetch instruction, decode, execute and store). In general in layman's terms x86 can directly perform operation on main memory while PPC and ARM require operand to be loaded in their local register before any operation can be performed on them.
Length of instructions also vary a lot.For example in ARM most instructions are of fixed length 16 bit or 32 bit length while in x86 can be from 8 bit to 512 bits (this is done to maintain backward compatibility).
Most important difference in my eyes is availability of several advanced instructions available in x86 AES-NI and AVX which are not available in ARM.
ARM is designed with mobility in mind hence will be powered with battery while x86 are deigned with performance in mind. Power requirement and heat dissipation is less in ARM is much less than compared to x86.
The list will go on forever.